Harris-Perry: Young Blacks Statistically More Likely Than Police To Be Killed

HARRIS-PERRY: "I want to ask you. I think it’s also in part what was said earlier. I think we generally as a society believe and accept and repeat — officers walk out in the morning, they kiss their family good-bye, not knowing whether or not they’ll return. In moments like 9/11, you know, we see that manifest. But from a clearly statistical point of view, that idea of kissing your family and walking out and not knowing if you’re coming home is actually more the reality young African-Americans. And yet we don’t have a separate kind of legal construction to address the violence that they might perpetrate in the world because they’re living under this kind of mental constant threat and belief of death. Not even primarily at the hands of police but at the hands of guns generally."
SHANE: "I think it’s an extremely important question. It’s a broader social question that needs to be answered. Doesn’t necessarily drive the tactics and strategies of policing. If we’re talking about how we’re going to address the immediate circumstance of any police officer who confronts somebody with a gun, I don’t think we’ll get it at by attacking these broad implications. We have to look at how they were trained. I think as a researcher, good quality data. I was asked to present my perspective on that to the U.S. Department of justice at a civil rights panel. I approached it from one of a failed data standpoint."